Star Wars awakens new wave of film tourism as its fans seek out locations

From the Harry Potter backdrops to Manchester’s gothic town hall, Britain’s stunning landscapes and historic buildings are a magnet for production companies, and now tourists are following in their wake

Daisy Ridley as Rey with BB-8 the droid in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, parts of which were filmed in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and at Derwentwater and Ullswater in the Lake District.
Photograph: Film Frame/AP

Disney is not alone in celebrating the success of its new Star Wars epic. An enchanting corner of Gloucestershire far, far away, is also feeling the force. Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean, a tranquil, moss-carpeted woodland where JRR Tolkien is said to have found the inspiration for the forests of Middle Earth, is reaping the benefits of the Star Wars phenomenon.

Parts of Star Wars:The Force Awakens were shot at Puzzlewood and fans seeking an authentic Luke Skywalker experience are flocking to the location in their droves, many in stormtrooper garb. A week after the film hit the screens, visitor numbers are double the average. Hotels and B&Bs are struggling to meet demand.

For a region that has historically found it hard to create jobs, the Forest of Dean’s links to the franchise and a host of others films, notably Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, could prove to be a major asset.

Film consultancy Olsberg estimates that “screen tourism” was worth as much as £140m to the UK last year and is likely to increase. Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism, which last week launched a guide to the area for film fans, believes that screen tourism will bring in £50m to the local economy over the next five years.

“The region suffered during the foot-and-mouth crisis of 11 years ago,” said its director, Mark Terry-Lush. “The mining industry has been decimated; in terms of jobs and prospects, tourism is something that the area needs to look into and really try to grasp.”

It may seem perverse that a remote spot of the West Country, more Laurie Lee than JJ Abrams, has become such an attraction for sci-fi fans, but Puzzlewood will be familiar to viewers. A location for Doctor Who, Merlin and Atlantis on the small screen, it made its film debut in 2013 in Jack the Giant Slayer, starring Nicholas Hoult.

Now hardly a week passes without it receiving an inquiry from production scouts eager to capture its mysterious beauty on film. Nor is Puzzlewood alone in attracting their interest.

Figures just released by Creative England, the body funded by the British Film Institute to help companies find locations, show that in 2015 it supported more than 1,100 film and television projects, a record for the third successive year.

“The number of inquiries this year is up by 40%,” said Caroline Norbury, chief executive of Creative England, which calculates that this year production companies spent almost £100m in local economies outside London. “Our main issue has been trying to absorb it all.”

Indeed, it seems that when it comes to film locations, few countries can beat Britain in the history or geography stakes.

“It’s so rich … in terms of so many things we needed for fairytales,” Rob Marshall, the director of Disney’s Into the Woods, filmed on location in Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, said recently. “It has period villages still. It has magnificent forests and woods with ancient trees with scale and size, and that was thrilling to find. It has castles, which [are] part of our fairytale world. It just lends itself to that so beautifully.”

It is not just Disney that cannot get enough of British locations. In addition to The Force Awakens, which was also filmed around Thirlmere Aqueduct, Derwentwater and Ullswater in Cumbria, this year the nation has provided some spectacular backdrops for the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed and The Huntsman: Winter’s War, as well as the latest James Bond film, Spectre.

While many of the films were shot by the big US studios, interest has started to come from further afield. Several recent Bollywood movies have been filmed in the UK. But the real driver is now expected to be television.

This year the government introduced tax credits for high-end TV dramas – those which cost at least £1m an hour to produce. As a result, US giants HBO, Netflix and Lionsgate are now beating a path to the UK, where their dollars will go that bit further than before.

“We’ve seen an influx of people looking to shoot in the UK,” Norbury said. “They’re coming because we’ve got brilliant locations and the tax credits, but also because we’ve got a great skills base. It’s a place where people want to come; they enjoy filming here and they think they get a really good deal.”

Manchester town hall, prized for its close resemblance to the Houses of Parliament. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The nation’s transformation into a giant movie set is a far cry from 2006 when the BBC caused a furore by opting to film Robin Hood in Hungary because it was cheaper than doing it in the UK.

A change in the financial climate has played a part. Cash-strapped councils now understand how they can earn large sums from granting permits to film in municipal buildings and spaces. Manchester Town Hall, an impressive gothic building that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Palace of Westminster, doubled as parliament for Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady. Its brooding stone architecture has also provided the backdrop for Victor Frankenstein, starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe, Sherlock Holmes, starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr, and the television series Ripper Street and Peaky Blinders.

Some venues are now almost as much in demand as the stars of the dramas themselves. Chatham Dockyard has featured in the television shows Mr Selfridge and Call the Midwife, as well as the recent films Suffragette, Mr Turner and Dom Hemingway.

Towns that resemble other cities are also in demand. Genteel Leamington Spa has doubled for Belgravia-style locations for BBC’s The Game and ITV’s Upstairs Downstairs remake, while St John’s Square in Wakefield is regularly used to represent a Georgian London square. Superhero caper Captain America: The First Avenger was filmed in Manchester’s Northern Quarter because many of its buildings resemble Fifth Avenue in 1940s New York.

Historic buildings that find themselves playing host to a blockbuster or primetime drama can see their fortunes transformed. Antony House in Cornwall saw summer visitor numbers increase from 25,000 to almost 100,000 after the success of Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Chavenage House in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, the setting for much of the BBC’s Cornish drama Poldark, has also seen a surge in visitors.

But both locations have some way to go to eclipse the success of Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, which hosted the first two Harry Potter films and has experienced a 230% increase in visitors since 2011, bringing in £9m for the local economy.

Olsberg estimates that in 2014 the day-visit spend from screen tourists was estimated to be worth £4.3m to Alnwick alone. This puts it ahead of the village of Bampton on the edge of the Cotswolds, home to Downton Abbey, which last year attracted some £2.7m from day trippers keen to see the real-life setting of Julian Fellowes’s epic saga.

Even grisly dramas can bring in the crowds. The Millennium film trilogy, based on Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander novels, has drawn thousands of tourists to Stockholm. A survey undertaken by the Stockholm City Museum suggested that 6% of people who had taken the city’s Millennium walking tour cited the films as their main reason for visiting the city.

Alnwick Castle, where the first two Harry Potter films were shot. Photograph: Alamy

Closer to home, Dorset’s West Bay has benefited from its new-found fame as the location for child murder drama Broadchurch. One report suggests that last year almost 8% of West Bay’s domestic tourism revenues could be attributed to the show.

But will the bubble burst? Will production companies tire of Britain’s historic buildings and impressive landscapes? After all, it is not every year that a Bond and a Star Wars come along together. Other countries such as Canada are also keen to lure productions. There is the possibility that producers will look to more exotic locations as viewers’ appetites change.

But Norbury is optimistic. “Harry Potter sustained us for 10 years and that has given people plenty of time to develop the next new franchise,” she said. “And, besides, we’ve got lots and lots more Star Wars to come.”